Sunday, June 12, 2011

So, our scaffolding came down on shabbes (on the way to shul, it was there, but loads of blokes were dismantling it, and on the way home, it had gone).

You can finally see our hip-to-gable roof, and the velux in the dressing room, and our newly painted house.

Boy, did I agonise over the paint.

First off, I felt I (we) wanted to be true to the original house, which is our guiding principle. Much as most people "gut" a place, we've worked very hard to keep as much original as possible (skirting / coving / ceilings / doors / fireplaces) and are even reinstating some things in the original style of the house. We're not looking for a period piece, as I've said before, but at the same time, I feel like things should be "in keeping". And I'm very committed to the idea that Edwardian architecture worked - we've only knocked down one wall, and all the other rooms are staying pretty much the same.

So to some degree I felt that the "original" pebbeldash (thankfully only on the upper floor, there is some red brick), while to me tasteless, was a reflection of the hundred-year-oldness of the house, and we shouldn't mess with it. Re-painting or re-rendering was in and out of the builder's contract half a dozen times.

Eventually, we realised that it just looks dirty. There's something about hundred year old poorly maintained pebbeldash that's just - ugly. So we painted it on the front and back first floor, and re-rendered the side (where it had mostly come off anyway) and are rendering the back extension.